Roll With the Waves

This week’s blog is going to be a little different. I want to tell you a story — with a little bit of help from my dear friend, Jude Schweppe.?

“This is a story about a woman figuring her shit out in the scrappiest year of her life.

She started the year feeling hopeful but nervous. Having said goodbye to a long-term creative contract at the end of December 2021, she had decided it was high time she went all in on her coaching practice.

She refreshed the website, built her packages, paid various people to help her with her client-getting strategy, tip-toed out on to LinkedIn, and felt like the new kid at school. Again.

She was also introduced to a most wonderful human being called Gabe Ratliff by the equally wonderful?Simon Shackleton. More on that later.

After about two weeks of doing all the things she was told to do by her business coach and hating every single second of it, she stamped her foot and said 'duck that, this is not how I want to grow my business.' And so she started to improvise instead.

She accidentally launched The Reluctant Networkers Club and started hosting meetings for reluctant networkers on Zoom every month.

She started working with some delightful coaching clients - not one of whom was acquired by doing any of the shit her business coach said she should do.

She changed her LinkedIn profile headline about 12 times. No exaggeration.

She started having lots of conversations with wonderful people and taking some time to have a jolly good think about what she REALLY wanted to do with the rest of her grown-up life.

She realised she missed being a creative. She missed having a team of brilliant people around her. She missed the camaraderie and connection of working with other people.

She discovered she had ADHD. Mind. Blown. And also, that's a bit of a pain in the arse, isn't it?

She stopped apologising for herself and second-guessing herself and censoring what she wrote. She just wrote whatever was on her mind. And some people quite enjoyed her writing.

Meanwhile, she was meeting every few weeks or so with the wonderful Gabe Ratliff.

And it became quite obvious that he was the male version of her, albeit a hell of a lot more organised.

Both performers in a past life. Both creatives. Both DJs. Both empaths. Both very passionate about stories and the people who tell them. Both with a LOT of strings to their bow. Both wondering what the next stage of growth might be.

And next thing you know, this woman finds herself as the new Creative Director at Gabe's agency, Artful.

How frickin cool is that!

It has been the worst of years and the BEST of years and I am so excited to join Gabe as we grow?Artful?together and develop it into a unique and forward-thinking anti-agency, supporting people and businesses that are doing amazing and inspiring things along the way.

What a ride, my friends. What a blimmin ride.

I was reminded by?Joseph Pack?this morning to reconnect to the teachings and philosophy of Michael Singer and just surrender to the madness and beauty of it all.

We are but tiny boats in this vast ocean. Roll with the waves.

Onward as Liz G would say!”

Well, there you have it. We are growing and are very excited about the possibilities in 2023 and beyond! I’m personally so thrilled to have Jude on the team! She brings her wisdom, aligned values as well as the same purpose-driven mission, a massive toolkit of skills as a creative director and coach, and over fifteen years of experience.?

?rtful is the anti-agency. We're radically simpler and slower. We prefer potency over frequency and don't do 'ready-fire-aim'. ?rtful is a creative agency, consultancy, and community. We provide branding, design, and other fractional creative services you need. We provide market intelligence, creative concepts, and ideation for campaigns. Don’t need the execution but want the strategy? We’ll help with the plan and clarity so you can hand it over to an in-house team. Our community is committed to you and what you need to stay aligned and on track. We're here to help you build a network of like-minded, ambitious business owners who'll share knowledge, insights, and perspectives so we all thrive together.?

Please help me welcome Jude to the ?rtful team as we take our own little business to the next level, and let us know if we can help you with yours. If you'd like to learn more about Jude you can?listen to her interview?on this season of?The Artful Podcast.